


a thousand and one parts

by salazarastark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, R Plus L Equals J
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 10:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17999819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salazarastark/pseuds/salazarastark
Summary: Ned forces himself to tell Jon the truth.





	a thousand and one parts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lovableamy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovableamy/gifts).



> I have to thank reel for betaing this. As you can see, she did a wonderful job.

If Ned forced himself to admit the truth, he would have to say that he never intended for Jon to find out about his mother.

He never intended for him to find out about his father.

If Ned forced himself to admit the truth, he would gladly have let Jon live the rest of his life not knowing about the Targaryens as anything more than the former rulers of the Seven Kingdoms, distant and starting to fade from the memory of the land.

That was not what happened.

*

It starts on cool day. As Ned stands outside, he can almost believe that the seasons are sliding from summer into fall. He wonders if winter is around the corner. He watches his children playing and training in the yard as he stands on top of the walkway. Sansa and Arya are working on their needlepoint. Arya watches Bran going through the motions of training, much like Lyanna use to watch Benjen. Rickon is sitting next to Sansa, staring at her work with fascination, trying to grab the needle out of her hand. Sansa consistently manages to get it away from him with a laugh.

Jon and Robb are in the middle of the yard, practicing their fighting. Theon is watching them with a smirk on his face, but Ned notices he congratulates Robb and not Jon when a blow lands.

He watches their styles.

Trained by the same man, yet their styles are different, obviously changed to suit their own needs. Robb is broader in the shoulder and makes bold, brash moves. Jon is more slender, favoring moves that make his opponent come to him for him to bring them down. They are both good fighters, already at fourteen, and soon both will achieve excellence. Ned feels his heart swell in pride when he sees them both. They are his eldest sons, his pride.

That is when he notices it. What it is he cannot truly name, but he sees it nonetheless. Something in the way Jon grips his sword, something in the way he smiles, something in the way he moves. . . .

Something about him in this moment brings Ned back to Harrenhal, back to the first time he ever saw Prince Rhaegar. He saw the man training with Ser Arthur Dayne, both formidable fighters, both men who knew how to do it and do it well.

It brings Ned back to the Trident and the moment he first saw Robert and Rhaegar on that bank, the moment he saw Rhaegar misjudge a movement and the way he went down after Robert heaved his hammer into his chest.

Jon does not go down. Jon manages to knock the sword out of Robb's hand, causing Robb to jump back with a yelp and hold his smarting hand. Jon laughs at that, and runs a hand through his sweaty hair, bringing Ned back to Harrenhal and Rhaegar besting Ser Arthur.

For all that he looks Stark, for as much as he _acts_ Stark, there will be a moment that Jon does something that truly does remind Ned more of Rhaegar than he would wish. It’s always in the little things.

It’s always in the details.

"Ned," he hears someone faintly say. He cannot truly hear them; there is a pounding in his ears that seems louder and louder with each passing minute. "Ned!"

He feels a hand on his shoulder, and he instantly jerks back, his mind already trying to calculate the danger. He moves to grab the dagger hanging from his hip, and only then does he see the hair.

It's red.

It's Catelyn's.

His wife is looking at him, her face a mixture of confusion, fear, and worry. "Ned," she says.

"Ned, what is the matter?"

He shakes his head. He feels cold suddenly, and he distantly feels shame bloom in his chest. He still feels too numb from his mind wandering in the past to truly feel that however.

“Ned,” Catelyn says hesitantly. “Ned, what’s wrong?” Her voice is stronger.

“Apologies, my lady,” he manages to get out. “I need to leave.” He moves past her, and does his best to ignore her worried gaze. He moves towards his solar, not even thinking about the walk, but just letting his memory guide him.

His mind is a mess that is only repeating one thing.

_“I have to tell him.”_

*

He does not want to tell Jon. He would do anything to prevent telling Jon the truth.

He cannot think of anything he can do.

Jon has to be told.

Ned had not thought about this all those years ago, when he was just past boyhood, holding his sister’s son in his arms as he wept over her cooling body. He had not thought about this when he started calling that infant his son, not his nephew.

He had not thought about anything related to Rhaegar Targaryen when he adopted Jon as his own.

He had not thought about how Jon, as much he looked and seemed like a Stark at only a few hours old, _was_ half Targaryen and might have some small characteristics of one.

He had not wanted to.

It might sound selfish, but he had wanted to see Jon as his son. Not Rhaegar’s.

Ned sits in his solar, a glass of wine in front of him and looks out the window. From his spot, he can see the top of the weirwood tree in the Godswood. He remembers how much Lyanna used to love to climb up it.

She’s in Jon too. They have the same smile _(Jon has Rhaegar’s laugh)_ , the same way of tilting their head when they’re trying to figure out a problem _(Jon gestures his hands like Rhaegar did)_ , and they both will do anything for the ones they love _(Jon snarls like Rhaegar did when he’s pushed to the brink)._

Ned wonders what else Jon might have of Rhaegar. It sometimes seems like there’s a thousand and one parts like Lyanna in him, but he knew Lyanna so well. He wonders what someone like Arthur Dayne or Jon Connington would see in Jon if they knew, if they gazed at him. After all, Ned only knew Rhaegar in the context of Harrenhal or the battlefield. Someone who knew him in peace, in happiness, surrounded by the things he enjoyed….

Perhaps they would find a thousand and one things of Rhaegar in him.

Ned cannot take this secret any longer. He longs to remove it from his heart, from his mind, and have it never haunt him.

He knows he is asking for the impossible.

 _And_ , a little treacherous part of his mind whispers, _does not Jon deserve to know who his mother was?_

_Who his father was?_

Ned wants to yell at that part of himself, tell it that _he_ is Jon’s father. That is the truth, Ned knows. But he cannot tell Jon that Lyanna was his mother without telling him who the father is, and from there he is going to lose a son.

The thought passes through his mind like a breeze, but in that moment, Ned realized what he was truly afraid of.

He was afraid of being replaced, of being replaced by _Rhaegar_.

The thought is ridiculous, Ned tells himself, but he cannot shake the feeling. He might have raised Jon, loved him as his own and he does not think that Jon will reject that, but he does not want for him to find out.

He wonders if this is how Robert felt, though of course, Robert actually was replaced.

Of course, like the thought going around and around in his head says, Ned might be too.

Still, Ned is a Stark. And while winter might always be coming, it will always leave again. He can weather this storm.

Unfortunately, he has to enter it in the first place.

*

He leaves his solar long enough to find a servant to get Jon. He wants to tell him before he loses his nerve, and in trying to calm it, he rearranges his desk before Jon arrives.

His son _(his nephew, the grandson of the man who killed his father and brother, the first child he held and felt such an all-consuming love for that it took the breath out of his body)_ walks through the door with a wide smile on his face and a flushed face. It looks like Jon had just been playing with his siblings. Part of Ned finds that a relief. Jon was happy before his world was turned upside down.

Part of Ned wishes it were not so. He does not want to see Jon crumple at this news.

He gestures to Jon to sit down. He cannot speak yet, he has to save the words. If he begins talking now, about small things, he might never stop.

He might never start.

“What is it, Father?” Jon says as he sits. “Lyon seemed to think it was a matter of urgent importance.”

Ned swallows the lump in his throat. “It is,” he says.

Jon frowns then. “What’s it about then?”

Ned closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. He opens them to Jon’s increasingly confused and worried face, and says the words he knows the boy has always been desperate to hear.

“It’s about your mother.”

The look of shock and hope on Jon’s face is heartbreaking. The way he leans forward, desperate to hear what is going to come next and not wanting to miss a single word. Ned knew there was no way that he could have told Jon who his mother was when he was younger, there was no way he could have kept the secret or understand why it had to be so. Still, Ned thinks to himself that perhaps he could have told Jon earlier.

He would have understood for years now.

Jon just wants to know.

The words stick to Ned’s tongue, but he manages to get them out. “She . . . was,” Ned takes another deep breath and continues on. “She was my sister.”

Jon looks like his world has been knock off center. “What do you mean? How can she be your sister? Unless. . . ?”

The look of disgust that crosses Jon’s face is almost comical. Ned would laugh if this matter wasn’t so serious, and if it wasn’t clear that Jon just hadn’t connected the dots of what that statement truly means.

He does not say anything, though the notion does disgust him too. He simply waits, waits for the moment when it all comes together in Jon’s head.

And it’s heartbreaking when it does.

“No,” Jon whispers, his voice near silent, yet saying so much. “It can’t be. _I_ can’t be. . . .”

Ned nods his head, looking at his son, who looks at him back, eyes filled wide with horror and understanding.

“But-” he starts to say, and then stops. Ned can tell Jon is trying to think of anything that could contradict this idea, but he _can’t_. It makes too much sense, explains every little detail that has always confused him, confused everyone.

“Jon,” Ned says, reaching for him. Jon pulls back from him, and puts his head in his hands. “No,” he whispers, “I’m not, I’m not the son of, of, of _him_.” He spits out that last word like it’s poison. “I can’t be. I can’t be a Tar-”

Jon turns pale, paler than he was, when he realizes what he was about to say.

Without a word, he gets up, leaving Ned sitting in his solar alone. Leaving Ned with one less son and going towards an uncertain future.

(o)

The next few days are terrible. Everyone in the castle can tell that something has happened between Ned and Jon, even though Jon has recovered from his panic. Jon is cold, however, and it stabs Ned in the heart.

No one says anything to Ned, and he does not see anyone say anything to Jon. He notices that his children have all closed around Jon, wolves protecting the injured pack member, even Sansa, but he does not think that Jon has told them what he has learned. They would have either confronted Ned, or confronted Catelyn, who then would have come demanding answers from Ned.

He waits, for what he does not know. For Jon to come to him with understanding? No, Ned knows that will not happen. But he does not know what else to say to Jon, and he does not know how to make him feel better.

He does not know what to do, he does not know how to protect Jon from his own emotions, and he desperately hopes that Lyanna can forgive him.

It is Arya who finally comes to speak to him.

She does not do anything other than walk into his steady and looks at him with her wide gray eyes, so much like Lyanna’s, so much like Jon’s.

“What’s wrong with Jon?” she asks, and Ned does not know how to answer that. He does not say anything to her, merely sighs and leans back in his chair.

“He’s angry and sad, Father,” Arya pleads. “I don’t know what to do. Can you fix it?”

Ned doesn’t know how to tell Arya that age does not bring with it the ability to solve problems, to heal wounds. That he might not be able to fix Jon because he was the one who broke him.

He doesn’t say any of that to her. He just gets out of his chair and walks over to her. He runs his hand through Arya’s hair and gives her a smile. “I’ll talk to him, I promise.”

The smile she gives breaks his heart.

She hugs him, and then leaves the study, trusting Ned to keep his promise and make Jon feel better.

He looks at his desk, and knows he does not have anything pressing to do, nothing more pressing than talk to Jon. He leaves his solar, and heads to Jon’s room.

He finds his son there sharpening a knife. Jon looks up when he hears the door open, and does nothing more than frown and focus more intently on the knife.

“I do not know what to say,” Ned says haltingly, “other than I’m sorry for this pain you are feeling.”

Jon says nothing, but he does slow down with the whetstone and the sword as he listens to Ned.

“I hope you know that I regret lying to you all these years, but I also cannot regret doing all I can to protect you all these years.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Jon mutters.

“It will not for a few more years, but one day you will have a child.”

“I’m not your child,” Jon says, and the hurt in his voice tears at Ned.

“You are, Jon,” Ned says. “As much my child as any that Lady Stark bore. I have cared for you all these years, loved you. You are as much a Stark as you are a Targaryen, and I never want you to forget that.”

“I won’t,” Jon says, his voice broken.

“Thank you, Father.”

It’s not much, but it’s not enough.

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope that you like the fic! Sorry it took me so long to get too, this should have been done long ago.


End file.
